Tag: Italy

New self-confidence of small EU states

The strongest european country Germany shows weakness as we discussed before. Mrs. Merkel prefers beeing in countries far away because she is still adored there. Not so in Germany. 43% of the germans want her to step down (german: Focus)

France and Germany used to lead the EU and the other member states followed. Money always helped, if a country rebelled. But times change and young leaders like Sebastian Kurz from Austria and the italian secretary of the interiour Matteo Salvini want to get involved in the decisions. The latest example for this is the rejection of Merkels and Macrons plan of a new european budget. 12 EU countries signed a letter against the plan. Their simple but entitled question is: “What problem does this new budget solve? – We see no sense in it.” (german Focus)

Greece.

Greece was officially released from the rescue program on Friday. The Euro almost had crashed and the country has been broke but over 270 billion euro saved her. (german: Badische Zeitung)

That sounds good as long as you don’t look behind the facade. Economic data have been forged over many years and no one believes them now. Unemployment is still over 20%. High taxes make it difficult for start-ups to establish. Since the European Central Bank will stop buying state bonds, new money will get more expensive. Greece is a risky financial investment and so they will have to pay higher interest rates. I hope that Greece will make it but chances are that the next crisis is aroud the corner.

Global trade war will test EU unity

What is the final answer to the US tariffs? Will they promote a new EU, that builds a wall against immigrants and protects itself by own protective tariffs? Or will the globalists win? There are different opinions within the EU that could split the continent even more.

Dangers and possibilities

It seems to me that many countries got strong leaders in the last years: Putin, Trump, Kim Jong Un, Kurz, Netanyahu, Macron and Erdogan for example. No matter what will happen with Germany’s chancellor in the near future, Germany will be without a strong leader. No party is strong enough to form a strong government. The EU as a whole is estranged. This is like a vacuum that longs for fulfillment. It could be that people say: “We need a strong leader whatever it takes.” So let us watch mindfully at the political developments.

Why is it neccessary for Angela Merkel to find a “European Solution”?

As I said before, Angela Merkel isn’t the undisputed ruler any more. In a time when Germany urgently needs a stable government, her many law-breaks and unpopular decisions made her vulnerable.

Our european partners don’t like her either. Greece and Italy call her Hitler. Hungary, Austria and Poland reject her refugee policies. This lack of solidarity led to an unequal distribution of immigrants / refugees. Germany took as many refugees and immigrants as all the other european countries combined.

For the last 3 years she prevented tried to find a european solution for the immigrant crisis. Now her time is running out because her rebellios secretary of the interior wants to win the elections in october. He wants to appear assertive because his competitor party AfD is at his heels.

It will take 2 weeks to prepare a functioning border control. That is exactly the time Merkel has to negotiate and come to result that is as good as Seehofers masterplan. Anything less is not enough. That also means that her negotiating position is weak and she could be blackmailable.

How could she achieve a solution?

As the time is short and the pressure high she will be ready to accept almost every compromise with our european partners. This, of cause will be expensive – not for Merkel – but for us german taxpayers.

The European countries don’t like us but they like our money. The french prime minister for example wants a european finance minister, so that german money can easier be transferred to other countries. That could be an option for Merkel to make concessions.

Greece wants to have a debt relief. There are also financial demands from the Nazi era. Cancel the depts and give some money and Greece will surly help Merkel out of her misery.

Italy has a new populistic government and their banks are on the brink of collapse. A little money will surely help them to take some immigrants from germany back.

The question is: What if Germany overestimates herself? What if Germany fails? Who is able to save her?

A european solution is almost impossible to reach within 2 weeks because every state has to agree. What she could achieve are bilateral solutions with some countries.

Talk Show host Anne Will is not allowed to discuss the government crisis

Anne Will was willing to interrupt her holiday to make a panel about the actual conflict. Usually Anne Will invites politicians to discuss currents events. Anne Will and her company tried hard to send the show. The TV-station ARD is financed by a forced charge and has to educate the people. In this case however, the ARD thought that the best education is to show a thriller rather than a controversial political discussion. (german: Der Spiegel)

Is it just coincidence that the responsible NDR Board of Directors consists of people from the CSU opponents CDU and SPD? (SPD: Silva Seeler, CDU: Regina Möller – Board of Directors)

After – summet G7 – blues

Our chancellor Angela Merkel usually is like a high-quality teflon pan. You never see her angry, sad or passionate. Even terror attacs, substantial losses of votes or the European dept crises don’t touch her.

However this changed yesterday. Although there seems to be no anger about Donald Trump, you clearly feel that Angela Merkel is frustrated and depressed after the G7 summit in Canada (in german: Anne Will). What is depression? Right, it is suppressed anger. I guess there is a huge amount of anger. Remember the strengh of our car-lobby, remember Mercedes and BMW. Both are not pleased to live under the threat of tariffs on their products. Their voice is strong in our politics.

Mrs. Merkel is a diplomat and dares not to speak out openly against the US president. But her position after Trump’s quote “disappointing, sobering and depressing withdrawal from the final summit agreement via twitter” shows her anger.

Anne Will: “Would you say that the times are definitely over when we could rely on the USA under Donald Trump?”

Angela Merkel: “I would not say ‘definetely’ …”

Last year after a Nato summit she said it the first time and repeated it yesterday in the interview:

Europe must become a strong pole as strong as China, Russia and the USA. Europe must become a global actor. There should be no arrangement between single countries within the EU with the various big poles of the world, that would ground down the EU.

Conclusion: “We don’t want to be pulled over the barrel time and again. We act now.” (quote Merkel) – The EU will try to build a stronger economic and strategic unity. Relationships with China, Russia, Japan, Canada and India will intensify in order to compensate the loss of the USA.

Merkel will not stop her efforts to talk with Donald Trump and to try to find a common basis. But, she sais, if this doesn’t work, you have to go your own way.

There are always changes in history and we seem to be at a critical juncture.

See what will happen on thursday!

There is not only a supervolcano in Italy (english: Reuters) but there is also a financial volcano there. For years the European Central Bank is buying risky government bonds from Spain, Italy and other member states. Until now these papers add up to

2.710.000.000.000 USD) !

This procedure was and is highly controversial. What once was meant to save the Euro from the collapse became a problem itself. Countries became used to the cheap money. Some important people say that on thursday the European Central Bank could announce the end of the program. That would bring huge problems for the liquidity of the poorer EU countries. (german: General-Anzeiger and Der Spiegel)

Update Tuesday: Capital Flight

As the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” (in german) reports today, the Italiens transfer about 1.18 billion USD abroad EACH DAY since May.

Italiens don’t trust their new government and fear a severe bank crisis in the land. In 2013 we saw such a scenario in the Euro-country Cyprus with strict capital controls and bank closures (german: Der Spiegel). Italy is much bigger than Greece and her financial breakdown would be devestating. The italian leaders know this also and try to calm down the people.

Yesterday’s news would normally spread over months. But when the coffee machine failes it is very likely that out of sympathy the washing machine strikes also.

Deutsche Bank seriously injured

Our biggest bank suffers her lowest share prices ever. On friday they fell below 10 Euros for the first time in history.

Deutsche Bank changed only recently her chief executive officer (CEO). The new man is Christian Sewing who already started to fire 10.000 employees according to german newspapers (in german: Die Zeit and Stuttgarter Zeitung).

These are bad news for Germany and could also affect other countries worldwide. Deutsche Bank has the honour of beeing the most dangerous bank in the world in terms of harm that she can do to international banks in the case of another financial crisis (german: Die Zeit).

Remember that the European dept crisis is anything but over. The European Central Bank only buyes bad government loans in order to keep our member countries liquid. Like the Baron Münchhausen we try to pull ourselves out of the swamp by our own hair. Of cause many countries do that. But that doesn’t make it better.

Spain fires Prime Minister

That should not affect us very much but is worth to be mentioned. The firered prime minister Rajoy was not very smart when a part of Spain, Catalonia, voted for their independence last year. He called the saparatists criminals and put some of their leaders in jail.

On friday he lost a no-confidence vote in Madrid and had to step down because of a big corruption scandal. The party of the new prime minister Pedro Sánchez has no majority in the parliament. To become prime minister he needed the votes of the separatists. How will he handle the Catalonian question in the future? Can he prevent that Spain falls apart? He seems to have no real political goals except the power. (in german: Handelsblatt)

Premiere in Italy – 2 eurocritical parties take the lead

The country that sits on a third of europs lazy loans has a revolutionary new government since Friday. According to their program they want to increase the country’s spendings instead of reducing them. This is easy to understand since the economy is weak and a quater of the young people under 34 is unemployed. There have to be investments to make the economy grow.

In Brussels are strong concerns about this new kind of policy. Who will pay for the investment program? Will there be a new European dept crisis? What if Italy doesn’t follow Merkel’s “suggestions”? (sources in german: SPON and Euronews)

Tradewar Day 1 – 25% steel tariffs in place

Yes, that too happened on friday. US president Trumpcarried out his threat of imposing high steel and aluminium tariffs on his closest allies. Canada and the EU already announced that they will not accept this move and will impose their own tariffs on US products. (BBC)

Mistrust and tensions between the nations seem to rise. Simply watch this video of the canadian prime minister Trudeau and you can feel the confusion:

Tensions rise for sure. See what the german newspaper “Die Welt” reports:

30.000 more soldiers under Nato and German control

They will have hundreds of warplanes and warships to fight back “a possible russian attack”. The previous number of 20.000 soldiers will be more than doubled. A new NATO headquater will be built in Ulm, Germany. (in german: Die Welt and Süddeutsche Zeitung) I don’t like the thought. Do you know, that Germany arms the police with 17-tons-tanks? They are currently discussing the use of machine guns. (in german: Morgenpost) Where will this development lead us to?